The march of art

Its been a while since I posted anything artsy. That would be because the progress of my current painting, like everything else it seems, is very slow. However, while I left the geezer and bub to fend on their own today, I did manage to get a lot of layers done on it. If you recall, this was what it looked like a month ago.




I'll need to plan another two escape trips to lay down the final layers then it'll be finished. When its done, I think we'll hang it in the living room.



Onto crafty matters...whilst cutting and piecing the quilt that's engulfed my work table and my free time (have I mentioned THAT quilt enough on this blog? because I'm almost over it now) I've collected a boxful of scrap fabric, which I'm trying to use up with various small projects.....one being the pin cushion from several posts ago and this one being a mini-moopy from Moopy & Me. It was quite a challenge stuffing those narrow arms and legs, since even my pinky finger doesn't fit in the opening, and I have skinny fingers. I had to use a chopstick to push the stuffing down. Methinks I'll use a different colour combination next time. I'd rate this at a diversion factor of two, for two hours from cold start to complete stuffie sitting in the cup.

I was attempting to link to the actual pdf pattern, but it appears not to work anymore. If I manage to link to it later on, I'll update you.

Arrived home this afternoon and was pleasantly surprised to find the bub having a quiet play in her cot. Here she is saying hello!

Hope you're all having a wonderful weekend!

Edit: Carly from Moopy & Me has responded to my email letting me know that she's taken the pattern off line for the time being. So to all hangers-on, me included, she'll advise of updates to the pattern via her blog.

Japanese craft book madness

I like so many of you crafty bloggers out there, have developed an insatiable appetite for Japanese craft books. Their spare and whimsical style appeals so much to me. Everything appears so playful and fun in their craft book land....and once you start acquiring, they breed like rabbits.

Now, I can't read or speak Japanese, but the step-by-step instructions are well-illustrated and measurements are in actual roman numbers. So if you have previous sewing experienced, its easy peasy, mostly.

Here's my current favourite - ISBN 9784579111336 - newly acquired from my local Kinokuniya, and it doesn't disappoint at all.


Its about 180-pages thick, complete with included patterns. There's plenty of inspiring projects here for book bags...


...dress and shoe bag...

...more girl's dresses...

...fairy costume for dress-up parties...

...stamped fabric crafts...

...softies...

...lunch box bags and much more.

There are pages on crocheted hair baubles, felt animal faces, aprons, a bib, a sun hat, boy's fancy dress costumes and childrens formal wear. There's also a small section on cooking, but sadly I can only but drool at the photos of bento boxes and their scrummy yummy contents.

I'm going to attempt to make a little dress/smock for the bub's winter wardrobe, either from this book or the one below, which I'll show the insides of for another post.

For other information sources on japanese craft books (in English, of course), check out craftlog's link and these flickr groups.

How cute is this cover!

Lootery

Unceremoniously dumped......not me, but this package was.......on our back door! We live in one of those 20s-30s style flats which have front and back doors, with our back door fronting onto a side street. So how could the postman have known which one our back door was. And to add to the cheek of it, my package was opened! Opened and rummaged, I tell you!


This arrived while I was in the middle of cooking dinner last night. I was so distracted by what could be in it that I may have overcooked the lamb....sorry, dear hub!

Let me say that I squealed with delight when I saw the contents! Our fabric swap host, Miss Flib herself, was my secret swap partner. I feel like I've won the lottery....or the lootery. There were all sorts of goodies in there....a lovely pincushion, some braid, dotty ribbon, nice blue zipper, pink embroidery cotton and a swag of green buttons.

But wait! There's more! I've been eyeing this beautiful cupcake fabric online for ages. As expected, I haven't seen it locally in the shops here.

And the last and best, some Kaffe Fassett to go with the block of Green & Black's, the "little something for my birthday". Could this have been the suspected contraband?

This entire package has made my day, Gail. You can't see it, but I'm smiling from ear to ear. Thank you very much!

Illustration Friday - I Spy

Private eye Sally, on her way to solving another mystery, spies upon the missing.....jam tart! Ha! You conniving confection, try to escape my clutches again and I shall eat you alive! Next...where is that fudge brownie hiding???

Can you tell? I'm in the middle of afternoon tea while I drew this. I couldn't help enlisting the aid of dessert sweets.

Two plates & a jug

I'm managing to get some snippets of free time here and there, when the bub and the geezer are napping....unfortunately not in tandem as yet, must fix that. So I haven't managed a big enough block to do any crafting in. Also, the geezer has co-opted the laptop for some work he has taken home and now has his papers on top of my craft books, paint tubes and fabric piles on the table.

What's one to do in place of the drawing and the sewing?

I've been stealing computer time surfing all of my fave craft blogs and my fave online craft shops. Several clicks later and I've got three or four items in my multiple carts in several shops. Bad, bad, bad....and sad!

So, to distract me from making further damage to the bank account, I've been taking photos of crockery which I promised to show. I used to do a lot of ceramic painting some years back and this is what is left of that era.

My tulip platter....



....water lilies platter.....

...and a flower jug, with a blossom of a species unknown.

Everything else I made was gifted or long gone, most probably broken and tossed. Please excuse the dust.......that's not your screen. That really is dust! I'm blogging, instead of cleaning, yet again.

And I'll continue to ignore the cleaning while the bub is still asleep. Now where were those carts again? Hmmm.

And now for some me-time

Thanks, everyone, for all your advice on the missing fabric package. I've emailed and received confirmation from the online fabric store that I bought it from, and they helpfully offered to track it with their post service, while I've been hassling and literally getting in-your-face with my local post men and women....on a daily basis. They've ever been so patient with my whiney nagging (well, it sounded whiney in my mind) and the fruits of these efforts have finally made an appearance! Hooray!!!


The geezer with his gammy right foot....technically achilles tendon.....but gammy foot sounds better, no?......he's been driving me up the wall. That phrase "in sickness and in health" has been getting a mighty battering this week. Fortunately, I managed to escape the madness for a few hours yesterday and today.

Part 1: I packed the bub in the car yesterday, made sure the geezer had food and entertainment, then we headed to the mountains to visit a girl friend and her little girl. Another girl friend and her littlies joined us for a bit of an impromptu burst-day bash for me. The b-day actually happened early in the week, but better late than never. There were little girls laughing, dancing, lots of chatting, presents and chocolate pound cake....yum!

Part 2: This afternoon I was in the city, again sans bub and sans geezer for a well-earned string hop.....and look! Some ric rac, buttons and braid piping (along with a pincushion recently made by moi because its needed to pretty up the photo - tutorial for the pincushion can be found here)....

......and some new japanese craft books. What more could a girl want? An afternoon with girl friends and a spot of shopping makes for a very happy and more relaxed me.

Slow & steady

For today's bit of crafting, I was busy turning these....

...into these, and it. is. very. slow.

You know how it is, when you're in the middle of a huge project, the end seems so far away and no matter how much you're beavering away, it seems like its not moving forward.

The geezer's taking it slow and steady, too. He had his surgery yesterday....when I was fidgeting with china and linen waiting for his call, so that we can run over to the hospital and view the aftermath. Anyway, he came home this morning and is now taking it extra easy on the feet, learning how to walk up stairs on crutches.

One of my close girlfriends came over last night with cupcakes and commiserated on the geezer's predicament. He'll be housebound for the next fortnight.

In the middle of all the hubbub, I've been poring over my new book Kaleidoscope of Quilts by Kaffe Fassett.

And I have to say, this book is excellent. The photos are beautifully shot and the fabrics very inspiring.

One advantage that I like about this book is that the templates provided are already the correct size. I always get confused about enlarging templates in books and have botched it plenty, thereby wasting tons of paper. No botching here!

When I finish the current quilt I'm making, I'm going to attempt this one above. Gotta use up that stash somehow.

Also, I seem to have lost some fabric in the mail. Its been six weeks now since they advised shipment and still hasn't made an appearance. Has this happened to anyone else before? What did you do? Among that package was some Freshcut that I desperately need to finish the monza quilt.

Wish I made this

Scrummylicious chocolate fudgey cake from my mother-in-law. Very rich and very more-ish....as in I can eat more and more of it.

When I'm running out of blog material, I turn to nice food, nice china and nice table linen.

Unfortunately, I didn't make this either......a quilted placemat from here. The geezer had these ancient orange stained placemats that permanently occupy the shelf under the coffee table, sometimes they're on the top. Despite their ugliness, we kept them to save the surface of the coffee table. They also represented the last vestiges of the geezer's singlehood, hence I restrained myself from tossing them in the rubbish too early.

Anyway, last week as the bub and I were window shopping along our local strip I happened upon these quilted placemats and caved in to my consumerist tendencies. Yeah, I could have made some and probably improved upon the design, but who needs delayed gratification when I've long delayed the binning of those orange uglies.

This pretty china cup and saucer I didn't make....but I wish I did.

I used to do a lot of ceramic painting way back and there's still a few of my stuff pottering around, but I'll save those for another post.

The chai, however is made by me. Hope you're having a good start to your week!

More messenger than saddle

Necessity is truly the mother of invention....yesterday as I was typing out my previous blog post on this 'ere blog, I remembered this old pretty ribbon belt that I had from four, maybe five years ago. Whenever did these belts come into fashion?!

Also, sis, if you're reading this, get rid of this browser window now! There's a photo of your bag in this post and if you read beyond this point, I absolve all responsibility!


Anyway, I tore into it and carefully unpicked the stitches. The ribbon itself is a lovely quality of grosgrain which I wanted to save for the stash......and here it is saying hello to all its new friends.

And the d-rings I rescued from the belt are now part of this bag. Here 'tis with me wearing it. Its meant to be worn across the body messenger style. I was intending the actual bag shape to be more saddle style, but it ended up longish. Its also meant to be sitting up higher above the hip, which should do the trick as my sister is taller than me by about half a head.

It has one main interior pocket..........

....and a shallow back pocket, both with zips. This way her stuff is safe from pickpockets when she's walking along those street markets in Asia.


Okay, I'm off to get a drink now and play with my poor bub, who's been having to compete for my attention while this bag was being made. I'll reserve the "real" stiff drink for tonight!

Edit: By the way, I attached both zips with help from this tutorial from Autum's blog.

Rounded or pointy?

Yesterday the bub and I went out on a well-deserved trip to hunt out some fabric and notions for a few presents-in-the-making. My local patchwork shop is very traditional in their fabric design choices. I needed to find the contemporary stuff further afield.

I've been wanting to check out this place for a while now since they normally blog about new stuff that has just come into the shop....and here's me drooling over the images of fabric they post. I have to say, they have a very good eye for colourful and cute prints! And of course, I couldn't walk away empty handed. (Photo above of new acquisitions...with some Superbuzzy stuff mixed in the pile) Whew! I'll have to pat myself on the back for my restraint. I could've done some serious damage in there.

Next stop is embroidery floss to finish this!

My second pincushion made out of tweeds.......which I was hunched over 1am last night, hell-bent on finishing the stitching. Those squiggly things are meant to be four-leaf clovers. Oh well! Its the idea that counts. This is part of mum's birthday present.

Then, off we went to our next stop to get zippers and d-rings for my sister's bag. My sleep is still being plagued with images of how to construct this bag.....gusset or no gusset.....zips or ties......rounded or pointy corners? Unfortunately, its still a work in progress, 'coz I didn't find any d-rings.......unless I rip some out one of my old belts. Now there's an idea!

If I can't work on this bag today, I'll just have to cut and piece some more of my monza quilt.

Swaperoo

I've been taking part in Flibbertygibbet's fabric swap and my first package made its appearance today! From the lovely and very generous Sheila, I got a French craft magazine, a handmade card, some beaded ribbon, the three strips of fabric, more fabric for the stash (I'm jumping with glee!) and a box of beads to play with. Thanks very much, Sheila! All of these will be used in some craft, I just don't know what it'll be yet.

Illustration Friday - Wired

"Its music I found and I'm WIRED for sound....doo doo doo, doo doo, doo doo doo doo" from old the Cliff Richard song whose title I can't remember. The music video had lots of young things on roller skates with walkmans and headphones. Can you tell how old I am?!

Edit: Had to replace the previous blue-tinged photo with a colour-corrected one.

Weekend shenanigans

Well, I hope everyone had a great weekend....'coz we sure did!

First of all, let me take this opportunity to thank everyone who stops by this blog, and a special thank you to the peeps who leave comments. Because comments are like breadcrumb trails and I do so enjoy reading other blogs (I've currently got about 250+ on the faves list :-0) out in the sphere, even better when they're newly discovered. But more than that, comments are encouraging and always help spur me on to explore other crafty adventures. So a very huge thank you!


Last weekend, the geezer, my dear ball-and-chain, had been officially shackled to me for about a year. Has it been a year already? Time flies fast when you're having fun! He took me out for a long slow lunch at The Tea Room at Gunners Barracks. We had a table on the deck right next to the balustrade, so we had an uninterrupted 180 degree view of sunny Sydney harbour.....and he got me a little trinket for being a nice wifey. Sorry, no photos, silly yours truly left the camera at home. If you ever happen to visit Sydney, I'd recommend a visit to this place for high tea even for the non-tea connoisseurs, for the top-notch food and views.


I got these Apak postcards about a month ago now from my favourite online shop. There's three in the set, but I only had room for two in the frame and its gorgeous! The colours are bright and vivid. The photo above doesn't do it justice at all.

Other than the lunch and the framing of tiny art, there was also the requisite DVD evening and some strolling in our local shopping strip. In the nights, I've been dreaming of how to put my sister's bag together. I think I've got it now, just need to execute.

Alright, folks! Have a good crafty week!

Dang with the plans

Don't you think that sometimes the universe is just going against you? Or maybe there's a message that we're in denial about.

Three years ago, the geezer and I had agreed that we had just about had enough of Sydney....fast pace, increasing rat race culture, expensive, keeping up with the joneses, impersonal, I'm sure you've heard it all before....coupled with the fact that I had been in increasingly high pressure jobs for the last five years.

Anyway, we had decided two years ago to settle in Brisbane and bought a house there with the intention of moving within three months. Then we got pregnant...and don't get me wrong. I loved being pregnant and being with my family while this was happening. I couldn't have borne it all without extreme stress if we didn't have family or close friends around. When the bub arrived, we had reset our plans to move up to warmer climes until after she turned one, which is in about four months.

Looks like the proverbial spanner has struck again...we just found out today that the geezer's soccer accident two weeks ago may have done more damage than we thought. The doctor found a rupture in his achilles tendon, which may need surgery. Dang! Of course, this means a longer recovery time than we thought. So, Brisbane may have to wait another year.

Okay, I'm done with the rant! We'll just have to bleeping get on with it, yes. Geez, that feels better!

Oh, look! Its another drawing....

...which may end up being a painting. In fact, I'll make it my next painting.

And what other fabric have I been playing with today?

Just some rectangular log cabins....

...which have made their way into a corner of this pouch.